Are You Playing a Game You Actually Want to Win? | Seth Godin

Seth Godin (0:00)

The problem with holding a grudge is your hands are too full to hug somebody. And what I found is that carrying around a narrative of insufficiency or anger or revenge doesn't hurt the other person, it hurts us.

SPEAKER_2 (0:21)

Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living.

This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Eric Zimmer (1:06)

Years ago, Seth Godin directed a fourth-grade production of The Wizard of Oz. He cast four Dorothy's, four Tin Men, four of everything, and swapped them in and out during the show, so 16 kids got to be the star. The first two weeks of rehearsal had no script. He just taught them how to stand up and be loud. It was not a good Wizard of Oz. But 15 years later, kids still tell him they remember it.

That's an example of a strategy. And Seth's argument in This Is Strategy is that everyone has one, whether they choose it or not. We talk about families, systems, and how to tell whether what you're doing hasn't worked yet or it isn't going to work. I'm Eric Zimmer and this is The One You Feed.

Hi Seth, welcome to the show.

Seth Godin (1:57)

Well, thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure.

Eric Zimmer (2:00)

We are going to be discussing your latest book, which is called This Is Strategy, Make Better Plans. But before we do that, we'll start like we always do, with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking to their grandchild. They say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents kindness, bravery, and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, and hatred, and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins?

And the grandparent says, the one you feed.

So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Seth Godin (2:43)

Well, of course, it reminds me of Zig Ziglar. And Zig showed up in my life with that story just in time to change it when I was in my early 20s. And he expanded it by talking about the bank. And if you're constantly making deposits into your savings account, it's going to grow.

And we don't think it's odd that someone takes a shower every day or eats lunch every day.

Why don't we feed our good wolf every day? And I have found through the years that every time I focus my attention and offer sustenance to the good wolf, it makes my life better. It's not something I have to do. It's something I want to do. And I'm glad to do it.

Eric Zimmer (3:29)

Yeah. It really is this sense, oftentimes, with things like this, we think we're going to do something that's going to be the last thing we have to do towards our well-being. And again, we recognize it with things like showers or exercise, like that's preposterous. Like you're not going to take one shower that's going to last forever. But when it comes to our inner lives, we often believe in some end state that we arrive at. Yeah.

Seth Godin (3:54)

And the Buddhists haven't done us any favors by talking about achieving nirvana. The problem with holding a grudge is your hands are too full to hug somebody. And what I found is that carrying around a narrative of insufficiency or anger or revenge doesn't hurt the other person, it hurts us.

And so finding ways, you know, Zig took it really far. He refused to call that thing at the traffic intersection a stoplight, said its only purpose is to help the traffic go. So it's a goal light. But the absurdity of that is part of it, is that if we find ourselves constantly adopting hygiene about who we want to become, it happens. Yep.

Eric Zimmer (4:42)